A former Tyson Foods plant manager says that betting on how many employees would contract COVID-19, which got him and other managers fired, was intended as a “fun” way to “boost morale.”

Don Mershbrock, a former night manager at the pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa, told AP that managers started the betting pool after weeks of tension over maintaining production during the pandemic. He thought that the betting pool, with a prize of $50, would help morale because it would show that infection rates at the plant were lower than in the community as a whole.

“It was simply something fun, kind of a morale boost for having put forth an incredible effort,” Mershbrock told AP as reported by CNBC. “There was never any malicious intent. It was never meant to disparage anyone.”

Tyson fired the managers in December when the betting came to light as part of a wrongful death lawsuit, filed on behalf of a worker who died in April.